Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
